Over the last few years, as I’ve worked on improving both my climbing and my writing, I’ve seen many similarities between these activities. I’ve detailed my thoughts on this over the last few posts, but here’s a quick recap.
- Progress isn’t linear. There are jumps alternating with plateaus of consolidation, dotted with the occasional dip. But over time, progress happens.
- Sometimes things don’t work out, for reasons we can’t (yet) understand. Accept this and carry on.
- Deliberate, focused practice is important.
- Alongside deliberate practice there should be times of pushing forward and trying things beyond our current abilities.
- Everyone is different. What works for me won’t necessarily work for you. While learning from others is important, we must each find our own way.
- The problem might not be the problem. When stuck, the solution might lay be uncovered in what came before.
- Knowing isn’t the same as doing (which is why practice and perseverance are so important)
- Muscle memory is useful, but remember that practice makes permanent, not necessarily perfect.
To bring this short series to a close, I want to consider a question. Why? Why do I climb, and why do I write?
The knee-jerk response is to say that I enjoy both activities. Fair enough, but I enjoy listening to music, and I don’t put in anywhere near the same effort in this as I do in climbing and writing.
So let’s go deeper. I became serious about my writing ten years ago. Why then? What caused this mind-shift?
At that time, I was struggling at work. I won’t go into details, but I felt like I had no control over the situation, and no clear way forward.
This was when I started writing more regularly. I had no big plan. I started from the kernel of an idea, and wrote to see what would happen.
My writing was something I could control. True, I didn’t know where the story was going. But there wasn’t anyone else dictating what happened. Ultimately, I was the one who decided.
Some years later I had a short novella included in an anthology called The Power Of Words, and I realised that this power lies not only in the words themselves but also in bringing them forth. Writing gave me something I lacked in my job. It gave me a voice, even if this writing was, at that point, only for myself.
I’d written before, but it reached somewhere deeper in me now. I continued, eventually finishing and then independently publishing novels.
And realised that writing was only a part of what being a writer was all about. Now that I had these books I needed to market them.
Okay, I didn’t need to. I could have put them up on Amazon and left everything to chance. But I thought it would be good to get something back from them—readers, and also money. At least enough to pay for the production.
So I set about learning marketing. I learnt about newsletters and websites, about reader magnets. I learnt about advertising and reader funnels, social media and reader tropes. And a whole lot more. I tried different tactics to help readers find and buy my books.
And while I have sold a few copies, and have had some positive reviews and ratings, none of my books have yet earned out. So far, this writing and publishing thing has cost more than it’s brought in.
Why? I don’t know. I try things. I follow what others have done. I try to analyse where things are failing.
And one thing I’ve come to realise is that there are no guarantees. I could do exactly the same as some successful writer, and I’d have wildly different results.
Because it’s not something I can control. Yes, I can tweak ads, or focus on targeting. Yes, I can write posts and newsletters. But when it comes to potential readers connecting with the ads, posts or newsletters, there is too much outside my control. There are a million other distractions. And if a potential reader does pay attention, are they in the frame of mind to buy, or to download a free book? If they download a book, will it become just another file, pushed down the TBR list in favour of a new, more exciting-sounding title?
I can control my input into marketing, but I can’t control what happens after that. I’m at the whims of reader attention, of various store and social media site algorithms.
Which could explain why I grew more serious about climbing over the last few years. With a vague despondency over the lack of marketing success, I needed a feeling of control. While the writing served this to a point, it was always tinged with the marketing side of things.
In most sports, you compete against others, either individually or as part of a team. There is a winner, and by default there are losers (those who didn’t win). But climbing is different. Yes, there are climbing competitions (even at the level I climb), but the competition is far more internal.
I think I’ve mentioned the friendly, co-operative atmosphere I’ve found at climbing walls. Whatever level you climb at, there will be someone to offer advice and encouragement. As a regular at the walls I climb at, I’m often there with other regulars, and we often work on a problem together. We’ll bounce ideas around, each trying something slightly different.
Usually, someone will reach the top first. But that doesn’t mean they’ve ‘won’, because the rest of us might reach the top using a slightly different set of moves. And even if you don’t reach the top, you’ve made progress.
And that progress isn’t down to others. Okay, there’s the advice. And the encouragement. But you take that in, and you let that feed into your efforts. Then, when the set of moves works out and you reach the top, you can justifiably say that you’ve done it.
And if you don’t? It’s not a case of someone else beating you to it, or someone else interfering (unless they do, in which case they’ll get thrown out). No, it’s simply that you’re not quite ready to solve that particular problem. Keep working at it, and maybe you will.
It comes back to control. Top out or not, it’s down to me. My climbing is under my control.
I’ve come to realise that having at least one activity like this—something controllable—is vitally important. We exist in societies, where we have to fit in with others. Our actions are so often dictated or influenced by others, even people we don’t know. We can control how we respond to situations (to an extent), but we can’t control those situations. So having some time each week when we are autonomous can give a respite from this.
It’s what I get from both writing (storytelling) and climbing. I get to be in control of things for a while. Yes, I get enjoyment from both activities (and there’s physical wellbeing connected with climbing, barring any injuries), but they both help remind me that effort can bring rewards. It might not feel like that at times—for instance, when another set of ads falls flat. But that’s because I haven’t found the right approach yet. It’s like the ‘everyone climbs differently’ thing—what works for one person won’t necessarily work for me.
So I have to keep on. To climb higher grades I need to work on technique and push myself. To write better books I need to work on craft. To sell more books I need to persevere with marketing, taking in more advice and lessons and trying different approaches until I find what works for me.
And maybe that is another lesson from climbing I can bring to writing. Everything else can be seen as tactics, or ways to improve, but behind it all is perseverance.
The final, and most important, lesson—don’t give up.
And that’s it for what climbing has taught me about writing. This series originally appeared on my free Substack—click here to subscribe. If you’re interested in the previous posts, after a short introduction I go into details on progress, my thoughts on practice, how individuality plays a role, and how knowing and doing are not the same.
TW Iain 